The word ‘esoteric’ comes from the Greek word esōterikós which means ‘inner’. It dates back to the 1650′s and is also associated with ‘belonging to an inner circle’. According to Lucian, the division of teachings into exoteric (outer) and esoteric (inner) knowledge, originated with Aristotle. Hidden knowledge is sometimes called ancient knowledge. It is commonly understood though, that all religions, all myths, all beliefs, all popular heroic legends of all peoples and all countries are based on the recognition of the existence sometime and somewhere of a knowledge far superior to the knowledge which we possess or can possess, unless you belong to an organization or group of people, to whom this ‘secret’ knowledge is shared.

Examples of the idea of hidden knowledge can be found in legends and stories, such as that of the legend of the ‘Holy Grail’. The Holy Grail, the cup from which Christ drank (or the platter from which Christ ate) at the Last Supper and in which Joseph of Arimathea collected Christ’s blood, was according to a medieval legend brought to England.